An Unconventional Hero
by OCQueen
Summary: There is a new hero in town: an unidentified person with magical prowess as well as a brain. Unbelievable, right? Happy ending, intricate plot and some romance. Realistic AU in Hermoine's fifth year and colored with her opinions for the most part.


Occurs in the Potter Trio's fifth year at Hogwarts.

Warning: There will be no very detailed, gory scenes that make you feel sick or want to throw up. If you like the things listed above, go to blockbuster and have a renting spree. Also, My line breaks do not work.

Dedicated to all the people who have written good Severus Snape/ Hermoine fics that have substance, or any fics that have substance and meaning. Yay to their authors as well! (I've recently re-acquired an addiction for this pairing)

P.S. This is not a Severus Snape/ Hermoine fic, as I am not talented enough to bend the plot so it accommodates my pairings; rather, I tried to do this and was whacked into shape by the plot, which wanted a different pairing that is probably more widely accepted and I find adorable.

Dedicated to duj, author of "Everything I've ever done" and an amazing, plausible writer who I will be drawing from at any time I want to use Snape's character. Winner of most complicated and realistic explanation of his strange mind. **End Author's Note(which I doubt anyone will read).**

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Hermoine sighed as she opened her new issue of _The Daily Prophet. _There had been an additional seven deaths, three of which may be related to people she knew: Aurora Trelawney, James Corner, and Muriel Bones. She wondered vaguely if they were close relatives or simply shared the same last name, and doubted they would hear about these murders if it were the latter case. Not many students had ordered _The Daily Prophet_ even before it had started spouting complete rubbish, but since its takeover by the government it was read mostly by rich Purebloods bragging about their parents' galas and other events reported within its depths. There was a moment where Hermoine pitied all of the reporters who may have taken the job in hopes of unveiling the truth, but now were required to use their power of the pen to conceal it.

The names were in the same place as always: third page, halfway down in small print. It was next to an article on the recent overpopulation of garden gnomes that was so boring its only possible purpose was to make sure people didn't accidentally find the list of fatalities while reading about something more interesting like, perchance, the rise of Voldemort.

Really, she mused, with the sudden plunge in quality of writings _The Daily Prophet_ was filled with, it would probably be more educational to read a gossip magazine, or even _The Quibbler._ After all, in a world of magic who could say whether crumple-horned snorkacks really existed or not? It was practically impossible to prove something did not exist in the ordinary world, but in a world filled with hidden rooms, expanding trunks and who knows how many kinds of magical storage areas it definitely was.

She handed the paper to Harry and peeled an orange, one of her new efforts to give house-elves less work by eating simple foods that didn't need any preparation or even washing, in this case. Unlike Hermoine, Harry glanced at the cover page before turning to the list and flinched when he saw its title: The Boy Who Lied.

"Don't worry about it, mate," said Ron, noticing Harry's reaction and proceeding to slather butter liberally onto a warm English muffin as Neville looked at him askance. "It's the third time they've used this title, isn't it? They've already used 'The Boy Who Connived' twice and you know how it goes, 'Three Bludgers and you're out.' Not," added Ron hastily, "that YOU'RE going to die or anything, that THEY'RE going to stop writing these articles, like a blue card or, errr… you know what I mean."

"It's a red card, for the last time!" exclaimed Dean Thomas, overhearing their conversation from a few seats away.

"Yes, but they've already used 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' FIVE times and I don't think half of the wizarding world even understood the reference," said Hermoine, ignoring Dean's interjection. "Really, they don't seem to understand that you're hardly a boy by now. I mean, you've faced Voldemort what, six times by now? And I doubt Cho would have gone out with you if she thought you were a boy." Hermoine subtly moved the butter out of Ron's arm reach to spare her stomach as much of the nausea he was currently causing it as she could. He scowled at her and started adding strawberry jam to the English muffin, which was turning an interesting color as he had somehow added apricot jam, chocolate spread and many other, stranger, things to it during the course of their brief conversation.

"How many things did you put on there?" asked Neville in awe, watching Ron inhale half of his muffin in one go.

"Abou' sheffen," replied Ron with his mouth full.

"Si-_ Someone_" Hermoine caught herself before saying his name, "thought it would be a good idea to offer him this –thing- in the summer and he's been scarfing them down obsessively ever since."

"Not true!" protested Ron. "That one also had peanut butter on it, remember? It's how I found out I was allergic."

"Oh yeah," said Harry, remembering the incident at Grimmauld Place much more fondly now that Ron's life was no longer in eminent danger- from peanut butter, anyways. "You swelled up like my Aunt Marge. Only not as ugly," he added thoughtfully. "That would be impossible."

"I couldn't believe you had never tried peanut butter before," commented Hermoine, who had grown up having a peanut butter and banana sandwich at least once a week. It was a little known fact that they were her favorite food, as much because of their taste as her desire when she was little to be Elvis when she grew up.

"Me neither," replied Ron, licking crumbs off his fingers. "It was delicious…" and though Ron had just eaten an enormous muffin covered in who-knows-what his eyes glazed over as he reminisced about the taste of peanut butter, which was to be forever forbidden to him.

"Until the swelling started," reminded Harry, interrupting this most wonderful daydream. "Don't forget the swelling." At this Neville started to laugh; as per usual, this laughter started while he was drinking pumpkin juice and caused Hermoine to pat him firmly on his back.

"Thanks," he said once he was able to breathe again, and stood up to go. "Snape's given me extra homework again and I don't want any more Friday detentions. I just finished the month given for The Shakespeare Incident."

They all shuddered, remembering when the heady fumes from Neville's cauldron, a sickly pink instead of clear blue, had caused all those in the classroom to walk around the rest of the day spouting poetry like love struck dolts. It hadn't been so traumatizing for the most part; in fact, it had been highly amusing to see Draco talking about how "it is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves", whatever that meant. Of course, Hermoine knew exactly where all of the quotes had come from and what they meant, but wasn't overeager to share her knowledge of love stories that they'd probably think ridiculous with the boys. It was the other Slytherin in the room's quoting that was the most scary; once Snape realized what was happening he chose the most disturbing quotes when he deigned to speak, and hearing him hiss of how "hell is empty and all the devils are here" and "conscience doth make cowards of us all"… well, it was disturbing to say the least.

Neville exited the Great Hall and Hermoine followed a few minutes later, worried she would find him snoring on his homework in the common room yet again. The boy tried to do his work, really, but though he worked ten times harder than Ron at potions every time he set foot in the classroom he failed miserably. She had once seen him shut himself up for a practical quiz all of Sunday and still end up with a D-, while all of the other students, who hadn't really bothered studying, passed.

Hermoine walked up a few flights of stairs with these thoughts in mind when she heard voices coming out of the room that used to house Fluffy. For some reason it didn't usually occur to people in Hogwarts that they could cast a charm on the door to prevent people listening in on their conversations, especially when they weren't particularly adept at shutting doors fully.

"Really, Severus, Voldemort should stop arranging these meetings for Sunday nights before his followers realize how woefully empty his social life is," came an amused voice.

"I doubt he wants one, or Bella would probably be hanging onto him even more than she already does," retorted Snape.

"It's just as well," sighed Dumbledore (Hermoine had looked through the sliver of open door to ensure their identities). "Not many women ask me for dates anymore, not after that former student- Rowling, was it? Spread a rumor of my desire to exit the wardrobe, so I'll listen to the report after your meeting. I assume you'll Portkey to and from this room?"

"As usual."

"Good, then I'll see you off. I can finally finish knitting that pair of woolen socks I've been working on while I wait. I always request them for Christmas, but hardly anyone takes me seriously."

"I'm certain the pain you go through when wearing ordinary socks is agonizing," replied Snape dryly, and as they eased into a familiar banter which Hermoine realized could end at any moment she snuck quietly away to the common room.

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Yay, my first Harry Potter/ multichapter fic! I actually have everything planned out and have already changed some important components of the plot (such as pairings) before I put this on my computer. It's strange that I used to dislike the idea of Harry Potter fanfiction. Anyways, expect a lot of common sense, things not mentioned in the book and heroism from unlikely characters! And this is a completely original idea, which pleases me immensely, since no one had written of this theme in harry Potter fanfiction, or any fanfiction that I can remember.

A few things to note:

1. I think every character in Harry Potter has good sides, so probably won't end up killing people off because of my immense dislike for them. Sorry. But I guess I'll do what's necessary… (Mwahahahhahahah)

2. I am an idealist.

3. This is AU.

4. I am not J.K. Rowling, so this will be written with a different style and emphasis.

5. Some characters may seem OOC, but I am writing them from my perspective given the situations and personalities shown in this fic.

6. Anything I do for comedy is meant for comedy. I don't think I'll write anything offensive, but if you disagree with some things just post it in a review. Example: "Having Ron eat and talk at the same time is a bad example for youngsters" or "Ron's allergic reaction was not funny, I once had one and nearly died." As you can probably tell, these parts of the plot will not be changed by these complaints but other complaints may change some things. Yay complaints!

7. Flames are welcome if they come with any references to the Beatles, Monkees, Carpenters or other bands, because only then will I accept you as cultured. If I receive a flame because of this note I will probably burst out laughing.

8. Also: Hermoine is listed as the only main character so no pairing will be predicted before the story even really starts. All I can say is it will be someone around her age, who was at Hogwarts when she was in her fifth year. And she's straight because I said so, not prejudiced and yadda yadda.

I love reviews and hopefully the people reading this are nice enough to give me some?


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